Bush vows to keep troops in Iraq until asked to leave - Africa & Middle East - International Herald Tribune

AMMAN — President Bush Thursday proclaimed Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki "the right guy for Iraq," and said they had agreed to speed the turnover of security responsibility from American to Iraqi forces. But Bush dismissed a reported decision by an independent bipartisan panel to call for a gradual withdrawal of troops.

"I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq," the president said during a joint news conference here with Maliki, referring to the panel's final report that is expected next week. "We're going to stay in Iraq to get the job done so long as the government wants us there."

Bush also said he and Maliki would oppose any plan to break up the country, which is riven by sectarian violence. The two appeared together after an hourlong breakfast meeting with aides at the Four Seasons Hotel here that was followed by a 45-minute one- on-one session.

"The prime minister made clear that splitting his country into parts, as some have suggested, is not what the Iraqi people want, and that any partition in Iraq would only lead to an increase of sectarian violence," Bush said, adding, "I agree."

The two leaders set no timetable for speeding up the training of Iraqi forces, which Bush described as evolving "from ground zero," and a senior administration official, who attended the breakfast and was granted anonymity to discuss it, said hurdles remain.

"This is not a simple process of passing the baton," the official said, adding, "This is not the United States and Iraq struggling for control of the steering wheel. This is the United States wanting Iraq to be firmly with the steering wheel in its hand, and the issue is, how do we get there as quickly as possible."

The news conference came against a backdrop of rising violence in Iraq and increasing tensions between the two leaders. On Wednesday evening, Maliki took the unusual step of backing out of a planned meeting with the president, an embarrassment to the White House that came on the heels of the publication of a classified memo from National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley that raised doubts about Maliki's leadership.

On Thursday, both men tried to tamp down any suggestion that the relationship was strained.

Bush said yet again that he had confidence in the Iraqi prime minister.

"I've been able to watch a leader emerge," the president said, describing the threats Maliki said he had received since becoming prime minister, including shells being fired at his house.

The president added, "You can't lead unless you've got courage. He's got courage and he's shown courage over the last six months."

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Maliki, for his part, dismissed any suggestion that he had canceled Wednesday's meeting out of pique, saying the meeting - which had been scheduled to include King Abdullah II of Jordan - was not necessary because the prime minister and the king had already had discussion earlier in the day. "So there's no problem," Maliki said.

The senior official said the Hadley memo did not come up during the breakfast, except for a few jokes about leaks to the news media - a reference to The New York Times, which published the memo on Wednesday. The official said Bush and Maliki seemed comfortable with one another.

"There's no cloud over the meeting in any fashion whatsoever," she said.

Still, tensions seemed to bubble just under the surface. The two leaders barely looked at one another during the news conference. And when Bush, at one point, asked the prime minister if he wanted to continue taking questions from reporters, the prime minister swiveled his head toward the president and shot Bush an incredulous look.

The high-profile summit meeting and news conference underscored just how much pressure each man is facing to make changes in his relationship with the other.

In Bush's case, that pressure is coming both from the Democrats about to take control of Congress, who want a withdrawal of troops, and the independent Iraq Study Group led by former Secretary of State James Baker, which is expected to deliver a report next week that calls for a gradual troop withdrawal, without a specific timetable for pulling out.

In Maliki's case, the pressure is coming from Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, who wants Americans to withdraw from Iraq and whose followers said Wednesday that they would boycott the Iraqi government over Maliki's decision to meet with Bush. White House advisers want Maliki to reduce his reliance on the Sadr faction, but Maliki Thursday sidestepped a question about whether, or how, he would do so.

"My coalition is not only with one entity," the prime minister said, speaking through an interpreter. He added, " Sadr and the Sadrists are just one component that participate in the parliament."Upon his return to Baghdad, Maliki called on members of the Sadr bloc to end their boycott.

He described Sadr as "a partner in the political process" and entitled to express his views. But Maliki said the disagreements should be resolved within the Iraqi Parliament. "I wish they would change their decision," he said, adding that the boycott "doesn't represent a positive development."In Amman, the president and the prime minister did not say specifically how they intended to speed the transfer of responsibility for security from American to Iraqi forces, and they did not announce any milestones or set goals by which to measure progress.

"As soon as possible," Bush said, when asked how quickly he expected the transfer to occur.

"I've been asked about timetables ever since we got into this. All the timetables mean is a timetable for withdrawal," he went on. "All that does is set people up for unrealistic expectations."